Pick & Collect – manage more online orders with less staff

It’s a fact that the delivery process for online grocery shopping needs to be speeded up. If retailers don’t find new and more efficient ways to handle online orders, they won’t be able to keep up with the demand or make the online shopping profitable. Pick & Collect technology provides a profitable solution for retailers who want to thrive in e-commerce. Let us explain how.

More efficient routes around the store

Staff can be costly and retailers need to find ways to deliver online orders without excess hiring. Let’s streamline the process by making it easier for staff to pick and collect orders.

Pick & Collect technology calculates the optimal picking route around the store or warehouse based on each order. Without this type of solution, the staff would choose their own path around the space. This path is not necessarily based on the shortest walking distance between products. Let’s face it, what staff member really knows where every item can be found? Not many. The picking process is more likely an improvised treasure hunt, without a compass.

With a solution like Pick & Collect, your staff can pick more orders in less time. And you can take on more online customers without hiring excess staff. Instead, the staff you do have will be much more productive and can handle more orders.

Find items faster with electronic labels

When the optimal route has been clarified, it’s time for staff to get out there and collect some items. Running around and reading labels on shelves can be tricky. Even if the staff know where the pasta is located, it will take a moment to find the gluten free one from that specific brand. Not all products are colourfully packaged and easy to identify. Electronic labels make it easier for staff to spot the items of choice. When staffs arrives at the shelf, the labels of the items they need to pick will start to blink.

If you want to, you can choose picking by voice instead of picking by blinking lights. Staff will then follow a voice to access the items ordered. There are solutions that also will show pictures of the items that need to be picked, to make the process even easier.

The features of Pick & Collect technology are very profitable. For example, if your store handles 80 bags of online orders per day, you will be able to use the same amount of staff to pick 100 bags if you use Pick & Collect solutions to aid in the process. Thus, the profit potential of online shopping goes way up.

Pick & Collect saves staff 20-30 % in picking time. And it’s a fact that many companies already save both time and money thanks to this solution. Why not give it a go?

Interested in learning more about the challenges in online grocery shopping – and how to conquer them? Download our guide and see how you can make e-commerce more profitable for your store.